Seperation Anxiety

My oldest son has been gone for three days now. I have notice a difference not having him home, just a little less laundry, an empty seat at the dinner table, his just younger brother being a little lonely -- but today I really started to MISS him. I think it is partly because I started to worry about him last night. He has great leaders who know his personality well and that was comforting to me when I sent him off to Scout Camp. But today was the day they were going to take a ten mile hike into and back out of the Grand Canyon. He seems to enjoy hiking to a point, a point that is not usually very far down the trail. We do a bit of hiking as a family, but never too much because of the short legged four year old people that can't go on forever. The longest hike he's been on is the three miler they do in eleven year old scouts. AND he is terrified of heights. That can't be helpful when hiking in the Grand Canyon. So I've been a bit worried about him all day, hoping he was able to be brave and his leaders and the other boys were patient.

Sigh.

It would be so nice to know how it went!!!! And if he is eating okay and if he is warm enough at night and if he likes doing the merit badges he signed up for and if it rained there like it rained here and if he stayed dry and if he really did pack enough underwear and if he is changing that underwear . . . I guess that's why they don't let moms go up to Scout Camp. My worrying and fussing would ruin the whole experience.

The End is Near!

The end of the school year, that is! It is now the time of year when we get to go to about one million performances and programs to see what our children have been learning all year. So far this month I have been to two choir performances and two class programs. Yet to come: 5th grade violin recital and preschool "graduation" (even though they will still be in preschool another year).

Charity smiling while performing with her class.

The kids are always so excited to perform for us. My husband and I have struggled this year because we have a lot of conflicts between all the performances and the girls' softball and the boys' scouts. We've had to use the "divide and conquer" method, which means we each have to miss something. That's why we have cameras, so we can share moments like this even when we are not actually there is person. The kids have been really good about it and haven't complained. I feel a little bad that it's kind of a part of their lives that we both can't be to everything. But I try not to beat myself up about it, at least one of us is always there to support them.

Catalogue Chaos

Banished. Evaporated. Confiscated. Gone with the wind. The catalogues in our home are slowly and methodically disappearing. Maybe it’s the financial situation we are in right now (tight - we’re paying for my husbhusband's Masters program), maybe it’s that I can not stand to be asked to look at another toy and told how much it costs and that I can even get free shipping, or maybe I don’t remember what it’s like to be a kid and how much you WANT things when you are a child.

I think if I hear another child say,"Mom, do you wanna know what I want?" I may dive into a roaring rage, stamp my foot, tear the magazine to pieces and yell, "No, I don’t want to know what you want. Not until you get a job or at least practice your piano without having a melt down."

It’s not that I want to squelch the magic of childhood dreams - what kid hasn’t poured over a catalogue during the months before Christmas, looking, longing, and planing? The JC Penny’s Book got plenty of wear at our house. But that’s just it, we had one catalogue. These kids get several every month, plus tv commercials and newspaper ads. It’s just too much. I can’t see it being healthy to spend so much time thinking about what they don’t have instead of playing and enjoying the things they already have.

Have you seen the commercial where the children ask their mom to read them a bedtime story, so she lays in bed with them reading the Toys "R" Us Big Book? UGH. I have one child who’s bedtime reading consists mostly of the Lego catalogue. When I went in to have our before bed chat the other night I asked if we could talk about something besides what he wants to order. He said he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about.

Most of the catalogues have already hit the trash, many of them before the kids even know they came. A few are being stored a may have a short stint for about a week when the kids are ready to make up their Christmas lists for their grandparents, and then they will disappear again.

Funny, we ask the kids what they want for Christmas and often they have to see something on TV or whatever before they realize they want it. What was it like before all this media, when the only things kids coveted where what their friends had?

I’ve even thrown out my catalogues, and you know what? I don’t really miss them. They were sapping my time away from me as well, making me want things I didn’t even know existed before I checked the mail that day.

So we are taking a break.. Perhaps tonight my children can fall alseep reading a book.